EC to convene all-party meeting to clear doubts over EVMs

The recent controversy over tampering of electronic voting machines (EVMs) has prompted the Election Commission to call all parties for a meeting, where doubts related to the use of EVMs will be cleared. The announcement was made by chief election commissioner Nasim Zaidi. Zaidi said that the commission was committed to organizing free and fair elections and towards that end it will be utilizing voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) system in the future for all types of elections. He said that VVPAT will ensure greater transparency and establish public confidence in elections. “We will soon hold an all-party meeting in which they will be told how our EVMs are can’t be tampered with and are secured as per our administrative and technical safeguard system,” Zaidi said.

Zaidi was speaking at a press conference where he was responding to queries related to the alleged tampering of EVMs. It may be recalled that recently 16 political parties had asked the EC to utilize the old ballot system. They had said that the public confidence in the EVMs has been eroded. The EC is also planning to hold an open challenge for people to prove that EVMs can be tampered with. Zaidi said that this would clear all doubts related to the potential misuse of EVMs.